While last week’s temperatures in Cambridge Bay were at least 10 degrees above the normal -27 C high and -37 C low for this time of year, temperatures are now set to dip to -53 C on Friday night. Bring on the cold, the two managers say.

Before the frozen muskox sides are processed, they must pass scrutiny again before being thawed out, then butchered and packaged into cuts that include roasts, tenderloins and popular ground muskox.

Altogether, the 200 muskox harvested this year stand to produce about 36,000 pounds of meat, all of which will be shipped out to specialty retailers, high-end restaurants and even to Ottawa’s Rideau Hall, where muskox often takes finds a place on menus for official dinners.

“We’re always sold out,” said Lacasse.

That success means Kitikmeot Foods was the only one of the Nunavut Development Corp.‘s subsidiaries to show a profit in 2011.

Sales at the Arctic char and muskox food processor were down from $670,000 in 2009-10 to $567,760 in 2010-2011, but the plant managed to show a profit of $88,500 and employ about 11 people.

That workforce expands to more than 30 during the intense, three-week muskox hunt.

There’s no lack of local workers willing to work during the hunt: six husky young men show up over a 30-minute period seeking jobs as haulers and processors.

And there’s plenty of muskox around, too.

An estimated 30,000 muskox roam near Cambridge Bay, and biologists say the roughly 400 tags that the Ikaluktutiak Hunters and Trappers Organization hands out every year for the commercial and sports hunts barely touch the population’s robust numbers.

The muskox hunt itself is straightforward. Hunters, who work in a range from about 10 to 40 kilometres from Cambridge Bay, use .243 or larger rifles to shoot the muskox, aiming for the head or throat and avoiding young animals and large bulls.

The commercial muskox hunt is done in a traditional way, with hunters going out on the land to find the animals.

The hide, fur and horns go to the hunter and trappers association to reduce waste.

And, after the hunt ends and the work wraps up some time in March, Kitikmeot Foods shares in its successful hunt by providing muskox for a community feast in Cambridge Bay, donating packages of ground muskox to the local wellness centre, and sending other shipments of muskox meat to neighbouring communities.